Dragons of Motorcity
by neverness
Summary: In which the Burners' cars are dragons. ""When I reach my full length," the dragon, which was a somewhat alarming shade of green and slightly smaller than a medium-sized dog, said, "I shall be able to fly at speeds greater than two hundred miles per hour.""
1. Mutt

Motorcity with _Temeraire-_style dragons.

Please note that I haven't seen all the episodes, so things will be off. Also, this won't be one long story, it'll just be a bunch of shorts.

* * *

Mike Chilton was startled to discover that it took less than twenty four hours after leaving Deluxe for him to fall in love_._

"When I reach my full length," the dragon, which was a somewhat alarming shade of green and slightly smaller than a medium-sized dog, said, "I shall be able to fly at speeds greater than two hundred miles per hour."

A small part of him was certain it was impossible for any living creature to go that fast. A much larger part of him was cooing over her smooth scales and the three nubby little gray spikes that curled back from just behind either side of her head, and an even larger part was thinking about exhilarating that sort of speed would be, and with that statement Mike just knew that that the dragon was the most perfect thing in the world. He also knew that he had no way to keep up with the things a growing young dragon needed to thrive, seeing how he had just left behind the only life he had ever known out of a sense of – betrayal and need for justice and things like that – and was now living in what was almost literally the damp underbelly of Detroit Deluxe_._ But there was no one else to take care of her, and he could at least _try, _right?

He was startled from his thoughts when she nosed his hand impatiently.

"Are you listening to me, Mike? I am certain it is not too late for me to find someone else, who has better food and also is willing to listen when I am speaking. I am going to be very fast, you know. Anyone would be lucky to have me as a companion."

The thought was unbearable. Mike didn't doubt that at least some of his attachment came from the fact that he had just left behind everything – and everyone – he had ever known, but the creature also seemed to be smart and kind and, and, well, _adorable, _and the thought of losing her to a random passerby hurt.

"I'm listening! I'm sure you'll be very fast," he said, a slightly glazed smile on his face at the thought of _actually flying on a dragon and really that fast wow. _"and very large? And I'll find you better food, I promise."

He managed not to say _so please don't leave me, _but it was a pretty close thing. She could probably pick it up on his face, anyway.

"We should start looking for a better place to spend the night," she said, ignoring both his questions and his compliments. "I am not yet large enough to protect you properly."

The dragon was a little wobbly on her feet; she stretched her wings and took a few experimental flaps, which failed to push her into the air at all – Mike wasn't certain whether he ought to be relieved that it would be difficult for her to leave, or worried that she couldn't fly because he didn't know much about dragons and _was that normal? _– before giving up on that, choosing what seemed to Mike to be a random direction, and taking a few steps forward.

She wasn't very large yet, and with the piles of scrap and foliage that he thought might be glowing (it was hard to tell in the current light) she looked very – vulnerable.

"I think there's some civilization over there," Mike said, jerking his thumb in the direction of some lights he had seen while on top of one of the scrap heaps. The dragon tilted her head and narrowed her eyes, then managed a sort of shrug and started to turn around. She really wasn't very big, he thought worriedly, and her steps were frighteningly uneven. She looked like she was about to collapse.

"Hey, I can carry you, and you can get some sleep," he suggested. Even without a lot of dragon knowledge, Mike was certain that a dragging tail and drooping wings were signs of exhaustion. "It must be tiring, uh, cracking open your egg and eating and everything."

"I am not tired _at all," _she insisted, then immediately gave an enormous and poorly-timed yawn. "And how will I protect you if you are sleeping? Your skin is too soft; I am certain _anything _could bite you."

The look she directed at the bruise on his face was magnificently dark. "I will be very unhappy if you are the wrong color _all over _simply because I could not keep my eyes open."

"No, no, I'm really tough!"

That was _definitely _a skeptical look on the dragon's face, but Mike really could take care of himself.

"C'mon, trust me. I get to protect you now, and then you'll grow and be big and strong and fast" – and he doesn't bother trying to hide the joy that springs onto his face when he thinks about that speed, and flying – "and then we'll protect each other."

The dragon made a snorting noise that didn't quite fit with her generally dignified manner. "_I _shall protect _you," _she insisted, but then she sort of sighed and her eyes kept drooping further downward. "But I will make an exception just this once."

He reached down to scoop her up, and she shifted until she was pressed up against his chest in a way Mike assumed was comfortable for her, though he wouldn't go so far as to say it was comfortable for him. She had a few too many spiky bits, and he found out just how sharp her claws were when she pushed a few through his shirt in an attempt to get a better hold on him. Her tail flopped over his arm, and its tip almost reached his knees. He wondered if that sort of length was normal – it seemed like her tail was longer than her actual body. Maybe she just needed to grow a bit in order to reach the proper proportions.

Her eyes faded closed, and Mike couldn't help the smile that was becoming an almost-constant on his face. A _dragon! _A _fast _dragon! And she _liked him! _And once she was grown enough, they were going to go _flying!_

Leaving Deluxe was an awesome idea, he decided. Leaving Deluxe would have been an awesome idea even if Kane hadn't been – what he was. It still hurt, to think about that, so Mike tried not to. At least there was plenty to take his mind off it, like the weight of the dragon in his arms.

She was a little heavy, but Mike wasn't weak. He was perfectly capable of carrying her to some sort of shelter; finding things for her to eat. The people that lived at those lights – had to live there, he thought a little desperately – might not welcome him, with his voracious dragon and his blue cadet uniform, but hopefully they would at least point him towards where he could get something for the dragon to eat. Surely they wouldn't be cruel enough to force an innocent creature to starve.

Mike tried humming as he walked. He thought he could remember some sort of song his mother used to sing to him, when he was little and had trouble sleeping. The dragon didn't seem to have problems getting to sleep, but he liked to think it would help her have pleasant dreams: flying dreams, he hoped. Those sounded like the best kind.

It wasn't long before she snapped awake, though, with a tightening of her feet that stabbed him a little but probably didn't break any skin.

"I forgot!" she wailed, as she thrashed out of his grasp. He stared at her with wide eyes – what, what? Did she forget that she was supposed to wait for someone else, who was following them now and was going to take her away and then he would be alone again? Did she forget about something that was going to kill them both? Special dietary restrictions, and he had poisoned her and now she was going to die?

"I – I know _your _name," she said, then scratched at the ground and stared at the mark in a gesture that looked uncomfortably like embarrassment. "Now you have to give me mine."

Mike didn't know what to do. He had to – he didn't know how to name someone! He never daydreamed about having kids, and what he would call them, and their future careers, and –

"I - Mutt? No, that's awful, sorry – "

Her wings flattened slightly, and her eye ridges lowered. "_Mutt? _That really is – but no. You've already decided."

"I can think of a better one! That makes you sound like a dog, which obviously you aren't, I'm so sorry – "

"No," she interrupted, and now she was definitely grinning. "You've already decided. It's terribly cruel, but I suppose we will just have to demonstrate what a Mutt can do."

"I – "

"Now then, I am hungry again." Mutt looked around, her tail flicking thoughtfully back and forth, before sidling closer and nudging at Mike's pockets. "I don't suppose you have found me any more food?"


	2. Nine Lives

It felt good to finally be returning to Motorcity – the multicolored lights, the darkness, the piles of rusting scrap; all of it was a welcome change of pace from the sterile white-and-blue of Deluxe. More than a week had passed since Julie had last been able to go down to Motorcity. Her father had been keeping a closer eye on her recently. He said that it was dangerous for her to spend too much time out by herself; that the Burners had begun attacking Deluxe and its people indiscriminately, and it wasn't safe for a young girl to be on her own while they were still free.

Julie had gone through the motions, smiled and nodded and agreed that it was terrible the Burners were able to run rampant, but it chafed to stay inside KaneCo headquarters when she should be out helping in the fight against KaneCo instead. When she overheard reports of Mike and Mutt ripping through KaneCo's hounds, she wished she could be there alongside them, Nine Lives roaring beneath her as she created illusions and released the shielding smoke. She couldn't afford to rouse her father's suspicions, but it still hurt, to think of her friends out fighting, of Nine Lives helping without her there to man the weapons systems, of the fact that they might get injured and she wouldn't be there because her father worried about her and no one else.

"You look like shit," Claire had said one day when Julie managed to convince her father she needed some time outside the main KaneCo building. He had insisted she bring Tooley with her, so there was still no chance of escaping down the tunnels that led to Motorcity. Instead, she and Claire were experimenting with mixing different fruit juices together (no alcohol, Kane had said, but he smiled at her indulgently and gave her the best juices they had, like that was some sort of substitute that actually made sense).

"I'm just worried."

Julie sipped the mixture they'd just made. She was sure it would be better with some sort of alcohol, or at least a little umbrella in it; she had seen old advertisements for mixed drinks down in Motorcity with those in them. They were cute. Cute like Nine Lives, and if she kept thinking about what she could be doing instead of what she was she was going to go crazy.

Claire sighed, and then snuck a glance at Tooley, who was preoccupied with posing at the reflective glass. "He still lets you go to your internship, right? I can cover your shift tonight, but you have to bring me down to that waterslide thing in exchange. And no leaving me down there alone again."

"Claire, you are _the best," _Julie said, and they clicked their nonalcoholic beverages together before bursting into giggles. Maybe she could sneak up some – vodka, or something. Jacob was sure to keep some hidden somewhere, and even if he didn't, Texas would know where to find some. Really, it was the least she could do.

"Texas saidshe would come down tonight!"

Texas reached out to pull Julie into a tight hug. "Mike was worried about you, but Texas knew you would be fine! Did you have to fight too many ninjas on the way down? I told Mike ninjas were in all the tunnels, but he said we couldn't go fight them all for you, which was mean, but obviously you managed to beat them even without Texas."

"Thanks, Texas," Julie said when he finally let her go. Mike smiled at her from his seat at the bar, and Chuck gave her a brief wave before getting back to whatever he was working on. It looked very complex, she would just leave him to it.

"Kane's set up extra patrols and put in an early curfew," she said, scooting onto the stool next to Mike. She wanted to visit Nine Lives, but she ought to talk with the human members of their group first, and besides, Nine Lives might be out hunting at the moment. "I can't stay long; Claire's covering my shift, but once that's up I have to be home."

"Just be careful," Mike said. "I wouldn't want anything to happen to you."

The drink Jacob slid across the bar to her was dark green and had bubbles, and smelled a little like rotting foliage. The look on Jacob's face was hopeful, though, so Julie managed to take one sip before shaking her head desperately back and forth and pushing it back across the counter.

"I think it still needs a little work," she said, after drinking two cups of water made her capable of speaking again. Jacob turned to Texas, who had sat down on the stool next to her, and wordlessly handed him the glass, presumably in hopes of a slightly less damning opinion. "And Mike, of course I'll be careful. Uh, is Nine Lives around here, or…"

So much for chatting with humans before running off to gallivant with her more scaly friend. Mike grinned and gestured towards the back, where the dragon pavilions were located.

"She's been pretty calm, but we all know she's got to be frantic," he said.

"Just because you and Mutt get into fights about who takes better care of who doesn't mean the rest of us are that immature," she said, and barely resisted sticking out her tongue at him as she hopped off the stool. Julie _liked_ the fact that Nine Lives was, for a dragon, remarkably relaxed about her companion's safety. If _Mutt _had chosen her as a companion, she'd be stuck down here all the time while a dragon carefully examined each and every thing that came close to her, and only reluctantly allowed her into battle because being with her was the safest place.

Chuck gave her another vague wave as she left for the dragon pavilions, before turning to reply to Mike's plaintive "We're not that bad, are we, Chuck?"

They certainly were that bad; it was ridiculous how overprotective the two of them were, both of each other and the rest of the Burners. Sometimes it chafed, to have someone watching over her shoulder all the time, making certain she wasn't about to be hurt. Someday Mike was going to have to face the fact that the rest of them could take care of themselves.

The normally-dim lights inside Nine Lives' pavilion had been extinguished for the night, which meant the dragon was probably asleep. Julie didn't really want to wake her up, but she knew the dragon would be unhappy if she came down to Motorcity and didn't visit.

But the dragon lifted her massive head as soon as Julie entered the pavilion, and nearly pounced on her in excitement. It would have been unfortunate if she had. Nine Lives was a heavyweight dragon coming in at slightly under thirty tons; she was shorter than Mutt, but bulkier, and if she had actually pounced there was a good chance Julie would have turned into a splat on the ground. She was primarily a bright yellow, but her head and belly were black, and there were several black streaks that curled up to her back.

"Julie!" she called, and crept forward to the edge of the pavilion, where she lowered her head so that her eye was next to Julie's body. "Texas told me you would come soon, so I tried to stay awake. I wouldn't like to miss you."

"Well, you didn't," Julie said. "Here, let me get up onto you – I don't think there's time for flying, but I'd still like to be with you for a bit before I have to go back up."

Nine Lives held out a forepaw, which Julie climbed onto – careful to avoid the massive claws, because those things were deadly – and then lifted Julie up to get her into a position where she could awkwardly scramble onto Nine Lives' back. From there, Julie moved so that she was basically nestled up on the dragon's shoulder, a position where Nine Lives barely had to crane her head to see her. It was a place she often sat, when they were alone and didn't want to fly; Nine Lives said it was more comfortable for her than having Julie on the ground.

"Sooooo," Julie said. "How's – flying? Fighting? Beat up a lot of KaneCo robots lately?"

"Fine, but Julie, it would be better if you were here. I think it would be best if you moved down here permanently. It would be safer for everyone."

Julie sighed, and leaned backward to look at the ceiling. This was a conversation they had almost every time Julie visited. Even though Nine Lives was _less _overprotective than usual, that didn't mean she wasn't overprotective at all. "I can't. I need – the Burners need the intelligence I can give them, and that can only come from living in Deluxe."

Nine Lives' tail twitched back and forth, and Julie knew she would be scowling if that was an expression her face could make.

"You only stay there because your father would be unhappy with you if you left," Nine Lives proclaimed.

"I – " Julie balled her hand into a fist. "Don't try to make me feel bad about caring about my family. I know he's a bad person. And I _do _do more living there than I would be able to do living here. So just – drop it, okay?"

"The rest of the Burners worry about you. Mutt is always asking me how I can let you go off by yourself all the time. I don't want to take poor care of you, Julie."

"_Mutt _can go hover over Mike all she wants, she doesn't get to tell me what to do, and neither do you. If she doesn't trust me to take care of myself, that's her problem, not mine."

Nine Lives let out a sigh, but this was a conversation they'd had a thousand times before. Julie liked Motorcity, and she liked the Burners, but moving down here from Deluxe just wasn't an option. She needed access to the intelligence she could provide, and the technology, and yes, she cared about her father. Being evil didn't mean he wasn't – her father.

"I can tell Mutt that, but she won't stop worrying," Nine Lives warned. Julie glared at the pavilion's wall. Sometimes it amazed her how ridiculous dragons could get, especially when she considered that Nine Lives was the least overprotective of the bunch. But it was worth it, because Nine Lives was smart and warm and loving, with a certain somewhat unsettling affection for battle. And even if their bond wasn't as strong as Mike and Mutt's, because Julie was her fifth companion, hadn't known Nine Lives since she first broke free of her shell, it was still pretty damn resilient.

"Let me worry about Mutt, okay? I want you to tell me about what's happened while I was stuck in Deluxe."

Julie grabbed at some scales – Nine Lives had no spines on her body to hold on to, but the size of her scales was great enough to get some purchase – as the dragon shifted into a more comfortable position of lying on the ground. "Well. Dutch offered to let me try some of his scale-pigment stuff, and I have no idea how Whiptail stands the stuff. It stinks. Of course I said no – look at my scales, they are still lovely and yellow and black, as they are supposed to be…"

More Motorcity-with-_Temeraire-_Style-Dragons. Still haven't seen a lot of the episodes.


End file.
